Wrong Place, Wrong Time
by PuddinPopp
Summary: It's no fun when archangels get sick. Unfortunately for Sam and Dean, Gabriel has come down with something which is affecting his trickster abilities, resulting in them being stuck in a place in time. They have to find him to try to get back to their own time before the war between Heaven and Hell gets out of control.


This was humiliating. No, this was beyond humiliating; this was absolute heresy. Okay, so maybe he wasn't the almighty God himself, but he was the next step down - he was a freaking archangel- so this still classed as heresy, right? Well, whatever, he decided that it did.

Not only had those Winchesters figured out his identity, but they had actually dared to ambush him? They had dared to trap a true Soldier of Heaven – not just an angel, but an archangel - despicable. He could have almost handled the fact that Sam and Dean had worked out he wasn't actually a trickster if they had reached this conclusion by themselves, but the fact that that child Castiel had helped them realise this was beyond comprehension. How dare Castiel assist them in not only figuring it out but to tell them that burning a ring of Holy oil around an archangel means that they are trapped? He'd laugh if he wasn't so outraged.

He was barely surprised – for as long as he could remember, Castiel had always been… well, he had always been the runt of the litter. Aimlessly following orders, yapping and wagging his tail like the excited runt he was. He was always one to act first and apologise later, which often landed him in trouble with his superiors. Castiel's most annoying trait, however, had to be that he would side with whoever – or whatever – it was that would shower him with the most praise for doing what they demanded of him; until recently, it had usually been God, but since Daddy was MIA, the Winchesters seemed to be his focus right now and he seemed to be yielding to their demands blindly almost as loyally as he did with their father.

Despite all of this, what had really gotten him furious was the fact that Castiel – his own brother – was willing to leave him within the trap forever. Had it not been for Dean's courteous generosity of turning on the sprinklers, he would have been a prisoner inside a fiery trap for the rest of eternity; or at least until some unsuspecting human found him there, which would have been inevitable and no doubtedly difficult to explain.

What was also frustrating was that he was used to the luxuries of being on Earth – the women, the candy, basically anything that he desired was his. What he had right at this moment was a terrible feeling which he hadn't felt before that was causing his vessel to tremble. It would appear that the sprinklers soaking through his clothes caused the core temperature of the vessel to drop, and apparently shaking violently was an involuntary attempt at increasing it again – pathetic, really.

He did not enjoy this feeling. The heaviness of his clothes caused them to cling to every inch of his vessel which they covered, leaving no area untouched by the freezing material; he could have just zapped himself somewhere dry and warm, but he wasn't feeling how he usually felt. He had heard that humans became weary when they needed to sleep or were suffering from an affliction which invaded the cells of their bodies. For the first time since he has been present on Earth, he could think of nothing more satisfying right at that moment than sleeping; he concluded he would do just that when he got- wherever the hell it was that he was going. He couldn't go to the apartment which he was residing; he needed to find the Winchesters along with Castiel and convince them to say yes to both Michael and Lucifer. However, he didn't trust himself to zap anywhere; who knows where he could have ended up if his celestial powers decided to deceive him.

The other alternative to rid himself of this sodden mass of material and humanity was to just take everything off. However, he didn't much fancy strolling around the streets of Earth, in plain sight of many humans, naked as the day he – his vessel – was born. He was a welcome enough distraction fully clothed; he couldn't help but notice how many other humans were walking around with saturated clothes. In total he had counted… zero.

It wasn't long before the feeling turned from a necessity to shiver into more; as each protruding feature on him was becoming colder, beginning to slowly turn numb, he noticed that his nose was rapidly becoming the most problematic. It was continually dripping some form of fluid, causing his hand to swipe at the underside every few seconds, sniffing back as hard as he could. The noises he was making were not pleasant and he grimaced at how he sounded. With each sniff, the liquid that he managed to retain inside his nose seemed to trickle backwards, causing the most uncomfortable tingling, itching feeling – this caused his fingers to clamp around it and rub up and down in an attempt to alleviate whatever this feeling was, but this just produced more fluid production, in turn causing him to sniff… and the cycle began again.

After several torturous hours of this (which was actually just a few minutes… but hey, it felt like hours at the time) one sniff provoked a much stronger feeling than before – the tingling and itching intensified dramatically and Gabriel found himself stopping in his tracks as it appeared to completely consume his vessel. His head tipped back involuntarily as his eyes squeezed shut – he tried to keep them open but this proved impossible – as the feeling spread from the back of his nose, it ran down the length of it, ending at the edges of his nostrils which caused them to flare slightly. His pulse quickened as his breathing became erratic, the intensity of the itch increasing by the second. He tried to move his fingers towards his face to rub at his nose as he had done before, but before he could even get his hand close to his face, his body took in one final gasp of air, before it reacted involuntarily as he found himself unable to control it.

" _Hhih-_ _ **ITSCHH**_ _'uh!"_

That had not happened to him before. He was rooted to the spot, unable to move or do anything - the feeling had left him feeling so astounded that he didn't quite know what else to do.

It hadn't been an unpleasant feeling; in fact, it had been powerfully satisfying. What was unpleasant, however, was the feeling that had come over him after this cataclysm. His temples were throbbing rhythmically with his pulse, heat radiating out from his forehead and cheeks despite his body still almost convulsing in violent tremors. His nose was feeling fuller by the minute, resulting in a dull ache that seemed to envelop his face resulting in sharper pains around his eyes and throat. Small dots danced across his vision; he tried to focus on them but the rapid movements of his eyes resulted in a feeling that the ground was moving beneath him. He was not enjoying this feeling and in a desperate attempt to alleviate it, he crouched to the ground with an arm rested upon his knee, his head pressing against his forearm, eyes transfixed on the floor. Tilting his head forwards caused that fluid within his head to trickle down and out of his nose, causing that feeling he had before to return. Before he could even react, a powerful-

" _Hihh_ _ **TSCHHH**_ _'uhh!"_

-exploded out of him, creating more spots as he felt the coolness of the ground beneath him as his world contorted and eventually went black.

"I'm telling you dude, there is no way that Cat Woman would beat Wonder Woman."

"How could she not? Cat Woman has that huge whip thing, what does Wonder Woman have?"

This argument had been ongoing for almost an hour. Unfortunately, long road trips usually resulted in the most ridiculous conversations that one could ever think of. The main reason for this was that the brothers spent every waking moment together, so they literally had nothing new to tell each other that they didn't already know; this resulted in countless hours discussing superheroes and movie villains and historical figures... and who would win between them.

"What do you think, Cas?"

Dean glanced in the rear view mirror at the angel on the backseat - he'd said it before, but that really did sound like the set up to a really bad joke.

"I am not familiar with these particular women, Dean." He spoke so matter-of-factly, as he always did. It was like he thought that this conversation held some validity and that he didn't wish to influence either of the brothers in a matter that he held no knowledge of. Dean saw Castiel turn his sombre expressin back to facing the window and silently cursed him for not backing him up - Cas always backed Dean up, no matter what.

After a few seconds of sulking, the argument was truly forgotten; Cas held a special knack for sucking the fun out of every situation with his majestic solemnity.

"Okay, so what about... Gandhi or Hulk Hogan?"

"Are you kidding me? Gandhi would kick Hogan's ass!"

"What?! Dude, have you seen Hogan? He's like, got muscles on his muscles. He'd snap Gandhi in two!"

"But Gandhi has like, a billion times the intelligence that Hogan has, he'd kick his ass by out-smarting him."

"No, no, you're completely wrong! He'd-"

"Did you feel that?"

Their conversation was cut short abruptly by Cas; he had zapped himself between the two brothers, perching regally on the front seat. His eyes were wide, his skin pale and clammy - the brothers would have been more concerned but this didn't seem much different to Castiel's default appearance. Sam and Dean exchanged eyebrow raises before Dean spoke, still flitting his eyes between Sam and the road.

"Um, feel what?"

Castiel's eyes remained focused on nothing, staring aimlessly ahead but somehow managing to be staring at both the boys too; it unsettled Dean terribly.

Dean was about to speak again before Cas held up his hand sharply to stop him.

"Sh! Something is not right. Something is happening."

The brothers exchanged confused gazes. They knew that the angel was not exactly running for the "Sanest Person of the Year" award but they knew when his behaviour was unusual, even for him. If he was spooked, then they had every reason to be spooked too.

"What's coming, Cas?" Dean swallowed audibly before speaking. Castiel's mere presence was making him uncomfortable and he found himself shifting in his seat just being next to the guy.

Before Cas had time to respond, his body jerked forwards violently, his hands gripping his head. He began making groaning noises, like his head was causing him a great deal of pain. Dean slammed on the breaks, causing the Impala to lurch forwards, along with its passengers. Castiel was now silent, albeit still gripping his head and writhing. Dean placed a hand on his shoulder, wide eyes glaring at Sam.

"Cas? Cas, what's happen-"

" _Hihh_ _ **TSCHHH**_ _'uhh!"_

Castiel's body spasmed forcibly, letting out a sound neither of the Winchesters had heard him emit before. As soon as the sound left his body, his vessel disappeared from the front seat; a quick check of the back seat concluded that the angel was no longer in the car.

"W-was that a sneeze?" The question seemed more rhetorical as it hung in the air between the brothers. Sam just shrugged at Dean before the two tentatively began climbing out of the Impala to find the estranged angel.

They both stopped as they got out of the car, questioning if what they were seeing was actually real.

The highway that they had been driving down had gone; all that lay before them was a never ending expanse of grass and trees. There were no other cars, no cable towers – even the road was gone. There was nothing standing between them and the horizon… except for the angel-shaped mound that lay motionless on the grass a few feet in front of them.

~TBC


End file.
